Former Boston Red Sox Manager Discusses Bad Vibe Around 2026 Team

In a move that shocked the baseball world, the Boston Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora and six members of his major league coaching staff on April 25 after the team struggled to a 10-17 start. Cora, the third-winningest manager in franchise history, made his first comments since being fired, appearing on the 'Baseball Isn't Boring' Podcast on Monday, where he discussed what went wrong in the first month of the season before his firing, including a bad vibe he felt around the team.   

"For some reason, it felt weird from the get-go," Cora told WEEI's Rob Bradford while describing a number of storylines surrounding the team in the early weeks of the season, including Roman Anthony's use of the ABS challenge system and the team getting crushed by the Houston Astros after dropping two of three to start the year in Cincinnati. By the time the team had arrived in Boston for the home opener on April 3, they were 1-5. 

As a result of the slow start, the usually team-friendly crowd was especially hostile. "We get home, and Caleb [Durbin] gets booed. They booed him in the introductions. And that's not Boston; I was surprised that happened," Cora said. "Sell the team chants around the sixth or seventh inning of the home opener. That was weird... It was a bad vibe, to be honest with you. Not within us, but the whole atmosphere."

Cora is right; a bad vibe surrounded the early-season Red Sox, but it was through no fault of his, the coaches', or the players'. That bad vibe was just the continuation of what many saw as a disappointing offseason after the team’s first postseason appearance in four years.

After trading Rafael Devers in June 2025, many assumed the team would replace his production with a player of equal or higher caliber, especially after the offense sputtered to the finish line. That addition never came. Then, of course, there was the Alex Bregman of it all. He had a right-handed swing built for Fenway Park, a leadership style that meshed perfectly with Boston's young core, and a championship pedigree dating back to his time with the Astros. After Bregman seemed open to an extension with the team last summer, it became increasingly clear that the veteran would decline his player option and head to the open market in search of a multi-year deal. 

As the negotiations dragged on through the offseason, a growing sense of optimism suggested the team's next "Dustin Pedroia"- type leader would return in 2026 and beyond... Until there wasn't. Just hours after the team wrapped up Fenway Fest, the annual offseason fan fest, Bregman agreed to a five-year, $130-million deal with the Chicago Cubs. 

The reported sticking point wasn't money or years, but Boston's refusal to include a no-trade clause, which they cited as an organizational policy. When pressed about the policy at a preseason press conference, team president Sam Kennedy simply answered: "If Alex Bregman wanted to be here, ultimately, he’d be here.”

The offseason wasn't all bad; the team acquired Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray in two deals with the St. Louis Cardinals. They traded for Durbin in a February deal with the Milwaukee Brewers and signed All-Star starter Ranger Suarez to a five-year, $130 million deal that was earmarked for Bregman. Still, the offense hadn't shown the marked improvement many expected. 

Cora was right; hearing Durbin booed at his first introduction to Fenway Park was surprising and unfair. He wasn't playing well through the first six games of the season, but nobody on the team was. They didn't get booed. But for Durbin, he represented the fans' disappointment with the organization as a whole and how it's done business since winning the 2018 World Series. Going from Rafael Devers to Alex Bregman is one thing, but letting both go and replacing them with a good, not great, player on a cheaper, more team-friendly contract is another.

It represents every problem fans have had with the team over the last eight seasons, willing to do enough to make the postseason, but not enough to win a World Series. There didn't have to be an either-or situation; Boston could have had both Bregman and Durbin in 2026. That idea grew throughout the home opener and the first three months of the season, as chants of 'sell the team' became a near-nightly occurrence. 

Of course, winning cures all, and when the team finally started stringing together wins in late summer, those bad vibes faded. However, as the team sputtered down the stretch and the warts of a lineup that never had enough talent returned, those bad vibes returned. Now, after taking a step back in 2026, getting swept by the New York Yankees, rather than losing in three games, vibes might be lower than they were entering the year. 

Much like at the beginning of the season, that bad vibe surrounding the team isn't the players' or the coaches' fault. But it's the fault of an ownership group and front office that have lost their fans' faith. Unfortunately, there's only one way to fix that: build a team that can actually win a World Series, and with an increasingly imminent lockout, that's going to be a tall task for Craig Breslow.